In today's information age, communication networks are often used for transporting information from an information provider to one or more information consumers.
One technique for transporting information from an information provider to a group of information consumers over the communication network is known as “multicasting.” Multicasting allows the information provider (referred to hereinafter as a “multicast source”) to transmit a single unit of multicast information (referred to hereinafter as a “multicast packet”) simultaneously to all information consumers (referred to hereinafter individually as a “multicast client” and collectively as “multicast clients”) in the multicast group, specifically by addressing the multicast packet to the multicast group using a multicast address. The multicast clients monitor the communication network for multicast packets addressed to the multicast group.
In order to distribute multicast packets from a particular multicast source S to the multicast clients for a particular multicast group G, the multicast packet is routed through the communication network by a number of routers. The communication network may include multiple routing domains, and therefore the multicast packet may traverse multiple routing domains. Each router runs various routing protocols to determine, among other things, a “next hop” for each packet based upon address information in the packets. Such routing information is used to establish a multicast distribution tree (referred to hereinafter as the “shared tree”), and is maintained by each router in one or more routing tables (often referred to as a “routing information base”).
One problem that plagues many multicast communication networks is security, or more specifically, the lack thereof. Many multicast communication networks are based upon an anonymous receiver model in which any host can join the shared tree, for example, using a group management mechanism such as the Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) as described in Fenner, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC) 2236, Internet Group Management Protocol, Version 2 (November 1997), which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. This anonymous receiver model exposes the shared tree to various types of attacks.
One attempt to protect the shared tree involves the use of data encryption to prevent unauthorized hosts from accessing multicast data. For data encryption, a group-wide encryption key (referred to hereinafter as the “group key”) is used to encrypt and decrypt all multicast data for a particular multicast group. The group key is distributed to the multicast source as well as to all authorized multicast clients (hosts). The multicast source uses the group key to encrypt the multicast data, while all authorized multicast clients use the group key to decrypt the multicast data. Unauthorized hosts that receive the encrypted multicast data are unable to decrypt the multicast data, and are therefore prevented from accessing the multicast data.
Another attempt to protect the shared tree involves the authentication of control messages between multicast routers. Specifically, the multicast routers exchange various control messages for, among other things, joining the shared tree. These control messages are authenticated hop-by-hop according to a predetermined authentication scheme. By authenticating all control messages, only authorized multicast routers are able to join the shared tree.
Unfortunately, neither data encryption nor control message authentication prevents an unauthorized host from joining the shared tree and thereby consuming valuable communication resources. Because authentication operates only between the multicast routers, an unauthorized host can still join the shared tree, specifically by sending a join request, for example, using IGMP or other group management mechanism. The multicast routers establish the appropriate multicast routes for routing multicast packets to the unauthorized host, perhaps even using authentication to perform hop-by-hop authentication. As a member of the shared tree, the unauthorized host receives multicast packets. This is true even if the multicast packets are protected using data encryption, in which case the unauthorized host simply discards the encrypted multicast data.
Thus, a technique for controlling access in a multicast communication network is needed.